The Court Will Not Come To Order

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Major hellis about to break loose in the Senate this week over the president's stalled nominees to the federal bench, particularly those to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The Republicans -- most notably Jefferson Beauregard Longstreet Lee Stuart Hill Early Sidney Johnson Foghorn Culpepper Calhoun Sessions of Alabama -- plainly have decided to run out the clock on that vital court. They have resorted to accusing the president of trying to "pack the court" by filling the seats they have arranged to be vacant. This, of course, is a barefaced non-fact, not that it matters much. Harry Reid says he's had enough, and he's planning on pushing the nominees to a vote. Meanwhile, the denizens of the monkeyhouse have decided that, in their opinion, the vacant seats simply should be done away with on the grounds that the president was re-elected and, therefore, capable of appointing judges they don't like.

The House Judiciary Committee, which does not have a say in the judicial confirmation process, is holding a hearing Tuesday about the D.C. Circuit entitled "Are More Judges Always the Answer?" (The committee's chairman has already answered that question in the negative.) Seven Republican attorneys general, including Greg Abbott from Texas, sent a letter to the Senate today urging support for a Republican bill that would remove the three open seats from the D.C. Circuit. The letter accuses Obama of filling the D.C. Circuit vacancies "to slant the playing field sharply in his favor with regard to challenges to his aggressive regulatory agenda." "Using judicial vacancies to promote a political agenda undermines the rule of law and threatens to erode public confidence in our courts-something that Republicans and Democrats alike should seek to avoid," the letter states.

Have I mentioned recently that they're not even trying hard to make sense any more? A twice-elected president should not nominate judges who share his views on law and the Constitution because that would be promoting a political agenda? And the Republicans are now concened about eroding "public confidence in the judiciary"? That should give Michael Schiavo a good laugh.

Here's what John Cornyn, the senator from Texas who is not Ted Cruz, wrote about the vacant seats.

"Republicans should remain united in blocking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's attempt to pack the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is America's second-most-influential judicial body."

Here's what he said in 2005, in the aftermath of the Schiavo affair.

"I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country...And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in, engage in violence."